Running a start-up anywhere in the world is a difficult, back-breaking and soul-crushing experience.
It is not so much a test of your business acumen, it is a test of your resilience, grit and faith in yourself and your idea. It is also an incredibly lonely journey, one that requires one to summon insurmountable levels of courage and willpower to succeed.
You will be rejected, you will be critiqued and criticised and you will be discouraged. Yet, you will still be required to stay the course and press on. It is especially tough in an uncertain economic environment with limited access to funding and a scarcity of well-meaning mentors.
Challenges
In Kenya, start-up founders are not having it any easy. Ask any founder and they will tell you of the daily, painful grind of fundraising, pitching, delayed payments, dreaded calls from creditors, managing staff and trying to stay sane in the midst of it all.
Do not forget the discrimination they encounter in fundraising circles, the hoops they are made to jump in order to even secure a 15-minute pitch and the pressure of investors, should they be lucky enough to secure that funding.
They will also tell you about the challenges of financial management, and how, with delayed payments and cashflow issues, they struggle to raise payroll and sometimes their office rent.
For the newer start-ups, they will tell you about their struggles of understanding customer needs and the painful process of pivoting in different directions and knowing when to give up on a particular idea altogether.
Burnout and depression
Then, there is people management. They will tell you how difficult it is to find the right team to drive the start-up, and how fast they have to learn leadership and manage different temperaments at the workplace.
Burnout and depression among Kenyan start-up founders are real; a typical start-up founder in Kenya is a perennially exhausted, sleep-deprived and worried individual who understands that unless they pull themselves up by their bootstraps, chances of survival are slim to none.
But they need not go through all these challenges by themselves. They need to talk more about their challenges, particularly with well-meaning people and mentors that have walked the same path. Many start-up founders think that all they need is money, but sometimes, all they need is someone who will hear them out and walk the journey with them.
Entrepreneurs must not underestimate the value of mentorship and coaching. Mentors will not only provide a different perspective on your problems and support you to boost your self-confidence as an entrepreneur.
There is nothing more comforting to an entrepreneur than the warmth of a friendly hand and the assuring voice of one who knows a few things you do not know. More importantly, mentors are important for networking.
They might not fund your business, but they will give you advice that will enable you to attract more funding in the future. Nothing compares to a good, solid, mentor. BY DAILY NATION